It is a calculator which exhibits the Sun Path for any particular place, all over the world, along with the positioning and placement of the Solar Panels, ensuring maximum utilization of incident solar power.

Solar Calculator

It has been developed over the Microsoft Excel platform and comprises of two sheets namely: Sun Path and Solar Panel.

The Sun Path sheet

1. Displays the sun path diagram of a particular place i.e. the diurnal and the annual variation of the path followed by the sun.
2. Calculates the precise position of the sun at any particular time of the day using the altitude and azimuth angles of solar geometry.
3. Calculates the actual sunset and sunrise time of any day, at any particular place.

The Solar Panel sheet

1. Displays the Vertical Axis and the Horizontal Axis tilt angles of the solar panel based on three different cases: Ideal, Season-wise and the Custom case ensuring maximum utilization of the solar power.
2. Displays the Angle of Incidence of the incident sun rays over the solar panel based on the above mentioned cases.
3. Calculates the Solar Irradiance or the incident power over the panel, which is placed conforming to the above mentioned angles.

Importance

It can prove to be a vital tool to sense the path followed by the sun at any particular place, which can further be useful for building orientations and in various solar thermal applications.
It will be invigorating for the Solar Tracking systems by providing the exact angles for the placement of the solar panels for maximum utilization of the solar insolation.
This Solar Calculator aids in sensing the path of the Sun firstly, and further suggests the necessary measures that could be employed for maximum utilization of the incident Solar Energy.

Following are the representational images and a demonstration video which will provide an overview of the calculator :

The commercial reference building models for office building typology has been developed , Dr. Mayank Bhatnagar as a part of his PhD work under the supervision of Professor Jyotirmay Mathur, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, India and Professor Vishal Garg, International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, India.
The models are developed using EnergyPlus version 8.5 for representative cities (Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Lucknow) of 4 different climate zones of India. The reference buildings are developed for low-rise and high-rise office buildings with 8-hours and 24-hours operation based on data collection of 230 buildings constructed in the last 10-years.
These models may be used for the development of commercial building energy codes and standards, buildings research to assess new technologies; optimize designs; analyse advanced controls; and to conduct lighting, ventilation, and air-conditioning studies.
The detailed literature can be found from below links:
1. Development of reference building models for India
2. Development of a Method for Selection of Representative City in a Climate Zone

Click to download Software

The objective of the tool is to evaluate the effect of passive design strategies on indoor thermal comfort and shows variety of graphical representations of hourly climate data for a selected location. Furthermore, its added features help to see visually the unique overall pattern.

It comprises of 10 tabs namely:

1. Weather file summary
2. Temperature range graph
3. Radiation range graph
4. Illuminance range graph
5. Wind velocity range graph
6. Ground temperature graph
7. Hourly colormap
8. 3D-plots
9. Bioclimatic design charts
10. Design recommendations

Bioclimatic Design Charts

The function of bioclimatic charts is to simplify the study of environmental conditions for a selected locality for thermal comfort of people. It uses temperature and humidity data of that location to study passive strategies. Based on the climatic data study, tool can recommend some design guidelines for the unconditioned building constructions.
The details of how to use the tool is present in the “Help” menu of the tool.
The passive design consultant tool for composite climate of India is developed by Mr. Raj Gupta as a part of his MTech. work under the supervision of Professor Jyotirmay Mathur, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, India. And the project was funded by Indian society of Heating, Ventilation and Air-conditioning Engineers (ISHRAE).